The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure - By Storm Constantine Page 0,184

want to have Gelaming warriors bearing down on them, nor to be carted off to Immanion, but it would have been good to have some proof that he was in some way still important to Seel. So, on the last day of their journey, when they could already smell the sea in the air, Flick was silent, lost in his thoughts. He felt melancholy, but it was not a terrible feeling. Soon, he would leave this country behind and it was for the best. There was nothing left here for him.

The day was overcast, the air still. Tel-an-Kaa said she thought it felt as if it might snow, there was a heaviness in the sky, but then it didn’t look like a snow sky and it was too early in the year for it anyway.

‘No,’ Ulaume said, ‘it feels more like thunder. Perhaps a storm is coming.’

The sky was thick and white. It didn’t feel like a storm to Flick at all. But it did feel wrong.

Leef brought his horse up alongside Flick’s. He looked pale in the unearthly light, almost green. ‘I don’t like this,’ he said. ‘It’s not natural.’

Tel-an-Kaa, riding just ahead, turned in the saddle. ‘I am alert. Don’t worry.’

Leef and Chelone kept their eyes on the sky with such intensity, it made everyone else do the same. Flick kept looking back. The high forest was black on the distant horizon. They were far from Forever now. Surely they were safe.

Then Lileem said, ‘What’s that?’ She had turned her horse around and now pointed at the sky.

Flick looked back. There was a dense core to the clouds above the mountains. It looked like the pulsing pyroclastic flow of a volcano. Could it be smoke?

Tel-an-Kaa trotted her horse back to the others, squinting at the horizon.

‘Well?’ Leef said.

The Zigane was silent for a moment, then glanced towards the coast town, clearly calculating how quickly they could reach it at a full gallop. ‘I think maybe it is time to put heel to flank,’ she said in a surprisingly calm tone.

‘What is it?’ Lileem demanded.

Flick could see threads of lightning in the boiling clouds now, which were getting closer. It could be just a storm, couldn’t it? But a storm wouldn’t travel that fast.

‘An otherlanes gate is opening,’ Tel-an-Kaa said. ‘Gelaming. It’s a big gate, because it’s taking a time to manifest. That is not good news. It indicates a large number of hara approach.’

This must be what Itzama had once tried to tell Flick about, to show him. The memories of his time with the shaman were so nebulous now. He wished he could remember more. He wished he had been braver when he’d been given the opportunity to learn more about these gates.

There was a grove of oaks to the side of the road and Tel-an-Kaa said, ‘Ride to the trees. There is no time for flight.’

‘What good will that do?’ Ulaume said. ‘We can hardly hide there.’

‘Do as I say,’ said the Zigane. ‘Trust me.’

In the shelter of the trees, Tel-an-Kaa dismounted and walked around the grove, touching each trunk. Flick could hear her muttering.

An immense crack of thunder shook the sky. Lileem uttered a yelp and crouched down on the ground, pressing herself against an oak. Mima hunkered down beside her to reassure her. Ulaume and Flick went to the edge of the trees. Flick was terrified, but he had to see this. A wind had started up and it smelled of ozone, rushing from the west.

The strange clouds seemed to implode, but then with another mighty crash they split asunder. About three dozen creatures poured from the hole in the sky, like warriors of an angelic army. They were white, pure white, against the dirty clouds.

‘We’re fucked,’ Chelone remarked laconically.

‘No!’ Tel-an-Kaa snapped. ‘Go into the centre of the grove.’

The Zigane arranged them all in a tight huddle and then began to walk around them, touching each one with her icy hands and chanting softly, in a language they had never heard. She murmured certain phrases, over and over, and soon the sound of the words echoed in the heads of everyone in the grove.

Ulaume began to take up the chant also, whispering beneath his breath, and presently the others followed his example. The chant conjured a web of power around them.

Through the trees, Flick could see a company of white horses galloping down the road towards them. Their riders were dressed in silver and their flying hair was the same colour as the horses’